ENGL 420: Business Writing

I know I am a week late on this blog, but I posted it but I did not tag it so you can't find it. So I just really wanted to make sure I comment on last weeks topic because emailing is such a big part of our lives. Our generation is very technologically socialized, we send emails to our friends, parents, professors, and employers everyday. I know for me I have had to practice writing professional emails, because you kind of forget how serious emailing can impact your impression because it is kind of unoffical.

The first reading entitled E-mail Guidelines focuses on the etiquette for professional e-mails. In it the guidelines provide rules which to follow that should be used when e-mailing, professors, recruiter, and anyone who is not on a personal level with the sender.
I personally found this information to be very helpful because in the past I have sent e-mails and worried if they were professional enough for the receiver. The receiver is someone to the nature of my professor or recruiter for an internship that I would like to hold.

I have to do an internship next semester in order to graduate. I began looking and realized I will really have to search for something in my field. I am graduating with a degree in family services. There are too many jobs out there and none of them come with decent pay. I knew right away I could not be picky. However, I want to love my job and be happy where I am. I know what I want to do but looking at the Job Skills Checklist will really help add something to my resume. There were a lot of skills on there I had never thought about until I saw them there.

As I began going through the job search process online I was pleasantly surprised. As I typed in the type of job I wanted and my ideal location, I realized many options came up. I was surprised again went I noticed that about half the jobs that came up were actually ones that I was qualified for or will be qualified for when I graduate. Doing this online job search was interesting and it gave me hope for the future. It made me realize that there are a variety of opportunities out there for my degree. Overall the job search made me excited for graduation and my future in the "real" world.

I had never searched for any job online before. I was very impressed at how many sources I found online for an internship. I was even more excited to find how many of them I was qualified for. Furthermore, I was finding them close to home and that was something I didn't figure I would be able to do. I think as businesses become more computer savvy it brings even better opportunities for everyone.

All the writing classes I have taken have emphasized the purpose of writing and what I read this week was no different. I am pleased that the reading material supports what I have learned in the past, however, being told the same things over and over again is boring and a waste of time. Part of it was new material at least: To Earn or Maintain Good Will. I haven't thought of writing as having that particular aspect to it, but thinking about it retrospectively, I notice how deeply it is woven into human communication.

So far I've found this course to be significantly more complex than I imagined. The reading about understanding professional writing discussed topics that I had never really thought about on my own when writing. Of course I knew that good communication was key in business and technical writing. This is common sense. However, some of the more critical details discussed such as how proffessional writing's ultimate goal is to promote better relations and affect positive action and how all writing can serve multiple purposes got my attention.

After reading the article Online Remark Can Now Sink Job Candidate, I was surprised to see how much impact online communities like Facebook and MySpace have outside the internet. I have heard stories before about employers checking these sites to have a better understanding of the individual they are hiring, but it really emphasizes the idea when you read an article like this. Employers have very little information when they have to make a decision about hiring people. Most people spend weeks editing their resumes before handing them in.

After doing all the readings the other night I was upset and a little shocked with the "Online Remark Can Now Sink Job Candidate" article. I could not get over the fact that people are not being offered jobs because of things posted on the web (which is supposed to be private). I think that it is unfair for employers to go snooping around sites like Facebook and Myspace. I'm confused on how employers can break privacy laws by hacking into these candidates personal information, looking for candidates' possible illegal actions. They are breaking a law too by doing this.

For the first week's readings, I really liked the Guidelines for Proper E-mail and the one on Suck-less Writing. In a world consumed by Facebook and Myspace, the art of proper correspondence had been lost. So many times we send e-mails or messages to our friends without out using proper grammar or spelling. This becomes a habit and many people have forgotten proper etiquette. Often we write out one line messages or use abbreviations like BTW or LOL. The Guidelines for Proper E-mail serves as a good reminder for today’s young professionals about the art of correspondence.